intfiction.org

ever wonder why the ancient egyptians, who were infamous for covering every square inch of stone with hieroglyphs detailing the minutiae of their lives from weddings to ass-wipes, never actually etched a single hieroglyph in or on the pyramids at giza?

and, despite the numerous glyphs all over detailing the minutest detail of life, not a single set of glyphs speak about the creation of the pyramids? historians and egyptologists are assuming they built it as pharaoh tombs.

ok, so if they are pharaoh tombs, u dont think a single pharaoh thought of, idk, etching a glyph about it on or in the tomb itself?

also, we had to blast and dig our way into the pyramids just to find zero mummies inside, yet we insist they were taken by tomb-robbers.

i guess tomb-robbers who could walk thru walls?

people are teaching this crap to your kids. please tell your kids to constantly seek every source of info they can on the topics they are interested in before they believe anything they hear!

but, of course, as we all know, if its on the internet, its true. no one lies on the net!

drive safely.

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a man with a watch knows what time it is....a man with two watches is never sure.

oh, and a photo of the side of the sphinx was taken to numerous geologists who were asked to identify the type of erosion they were seeing in the pic.

100% of them said it was "obviously water erosion".

then they were shown the larger photo that shows it being on the sphinx. they were stunned stupid.

for the sphinx to be covered in water erosion, it would have to predate what historians tell us by over 10000 years, when that part of the sahara had rainfall

see how small the head of the sphinx is? its because it was a lion's head, and a pharaoh had it recarved.

there is so much out there and we really dont know anything.

just submitting all this for conversation.

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a man with a watch knows what time it is....a man with two watches is never sure.

Oh no, you have been reading that Erich van Däniken crap? To take just one thing that is plain false:


Even Wikipedia will teach you that the erosion of the Sphinx is a highly controversial issue, both regarding its causes and (among those who support the water erosion hypothesis) regarding the climate of ancient Egypt. The outcome of this debate could change the dating of the sphinx from anywhere to as old as the great pyramids (the majority opinion among Egyptologists) to the beginning of the Old Kingdom -- either way, there is little doubt that it was built by Egyptians.

To come back to the point of plain falsity, it is not true that 100% of scientists believe that the Sphinx has been eroded by water. Furthermore, such a story about a photograph taken to "numerous geologists", who were then "stunned stupid", has all the marks of myth. Who took the photographs to which scientists, when? We get no details that would allow us to check the story because it never happened; it never happened, because this is not how science works. This is the kind of rhetorical story though up by crackpots who need to believe that there is some mythic "scientific consensus" out there which is protected by scientists not "looking at the evidence" until some clever freethinker "tricks" them into it. It makes me mad to see such nonsense spread, because it turns our legitimate wonder, doubt and curiosity into some kind of anti-intellectual conspiracy theory. Blegh.

Here is a fun fact, which I only recently realised: the Sahara became a desert only between 4000 and 6000 years ago (we are not sure). Before that, it was a savannah -- not lushly forested or anything, but still the kind of place where lots of animals could live, men could hunt, and so on. The earliest Egyptian dynasty is from a little before 5000 years ago: they or their not that distant ancestors have actually experienced this. Have experience the greatest part of north Africa turning into a a desert. (And it is still going on: the north African coastal region was an important grain-growing centre for the Romans. Hard to believe now.)

Anyway, if you are interested in ancient Egypt -- and I encourage anyone to be interested in ancient Egypt, it is fascinating -- get a good book about ancient Egypt instead of reading the pseudo-science stuff. You will learn lots of things that you don't know, you will learn that there are many other things nobody yet knows (because all scientific books I have ever seen are very upfront about acknowledging this, and reading science is the best way to realise how little we know), and you will satisfy your curiosity by the kind of knowledge that only excites further curiosity. That is a lot more fun than getting a false feeling of I-am-smarter-than-those-scientists by reading nonsensical arguments about the Egyptians covering every inch they built with inscriptions (wrong; no one is going to inscribe the outside of buildings, and certainly not buildings meant to stand among sand storms for millennia), or about it being so surprising that they didn't paint the building of the pyramids (which, given that most of their paintings are meant to depict the afterworld, is the most unsurprising thing ever).

That was a bit of a rant, but none of it was meant aggressively, of course. I just... yeah, it really boils down to what I said. I hate how these people turn what is good (curiosity, the desire to know and understand) into what is bad (a false feeling of superiority and an antagonism towards even honest science, and most science is honest science) while that same good can lead people to wonderful discoveries.

Bravo.

Whose legitimate wonder, doubt, and curiosity? Is it legitimate to doubt the scientific community (or other intellectuals)? Is it legitimate to wonder whether the truth of a matter might be much deeper than the limited scientific understanding? Is it legitimate to harbor curiosity that cannot be satisfied by the explanations that are taught and offered to the public by the experts?

I have to confess to some very strong anti-intellectual prejudices, taught both by my upbringing and by holding a minority viewpoint that few people in mainstream academic communities take seriously. Even though my prejudices make it difficult for me to discuss this in a fair and level-headed manner, I do admit that science is a good discipline, and that it requires a lot more knowledge and study to be a serious scientist than I will ever posses. I suppose that the notion of an organized intellectual conspiracy against other ideas really is absurd, at least on a large scale.

However, I don't believe that those in the intellectual communities are the only ones with legitimate opinions. I don't think that either general public consensus or the best opinions of experts are necessarily good indicators of the truth of any theory or teaching.

Ditto to Victor. And while I don't claim to know anything specific about the pyramids or ancient Egypt -- thanks for the information, Victor! -- it might be worth noting that a pyramid-crawling robot very recently took pictures of what seem to be hieroglyphics in one of the chambers in the pyramid.

Pyramid-crawling robots photographing ancient hieroglyphic graffiti! Isn't that cool enough?

All of that is legitimate and often praiseworthy when it comes to specific facts or theories. What's not so praiseworthy is a blanket tendency to distrust scientists merely for doing their jobs (i.e. gathering and disseminating facts, theory and knowledge).

Someone who has studied a subject professionally should be expected to know more about it than a layperson. We may question the conclusions, but a theory should be countered with another theory, preferably a simpler one (in the terms of Occam, not more simple-minded) which fits the facts better. This is generally anathema to conspiracy theorists and fringe scientists alike.

A scientific theory is an explanation, a model. Ideally it's an accurate one, but it's certainly not supposed to be foolproof. It's not enough, therefore, to poke holes in the theory in an attempt to discredit it: one must advance a theory that does a better job than the previous one. It must still adhere to the data.

Does scientific consensus today contain a lot of holes, even errors? Of course it does. Does that mean anything goes, that any explanation is equally valid? I don't see how that follows. As Asimov once famously said, "when people thought the world was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the world was round, they were also wrong. But if you think the idea of the earth being round is just as wrong as the idea of it being flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."


Like Viktor, I hope I'm not coming across as strident or aggressive. I'm not being very coherent right now, and can only hope the gist of what I wanted to say comes across.

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~Björn Paulsen

Yeah, the idea of 100% of geologists agreeing 100% on anything is sort of hilarious in itself. (And the great reveal thing does indeed reek of urban legend.) I can't speak to the evidence or lack thereof of the Giza pyramids, as it's not really my area of interest, but the idea that scientists sit around all day congratulating themselves on the status quo indicates a severe underestimation of the intellectual curiosity and diversity of ideas out there, and a severe overestimation of scientists' congeniality. The scientific community tends to have squabbles and competitions and rivalries just like any other profession. There would be no way to set up a global conspiracy. I'd be stunned if you could get a single university department to agree and execute a conspiracy. Even a conspiracy that would take a week.

Bainespal, I'm a little confused by your assertion that the theories of the people that know the most about something are no more likely to be true than the theories of people who haven't studied it. Am I misunderstanding what you're saying, or could you clarify?

Everybody knows that the pyramids were one of the major public works projects of Pharoah Ramses Flathead, of the Ninety-Seventh Dynasty. What is less well-known is that deep in one of the side-chambers of the Great Pyramid, archaeologists have recently discovered a battery-vending machine. An intensive search is underway to try to find a one-Gizamid coin; if such a coin can be found, the intention is to use it to purchase a battery, in order to see whether the battery is still functional after forty-seven thousand, nine hundred fifty-two years.

As for hieroglyphics, at least one chamber is covered with symbols depicting a grue eating a man (although its difficult to make out because its pretty dark). Another chamber shows an adventurer slaying a dragon with his bare hands.

Although unconfirmed, there have been reports of a pirate wandering around the interior since ancient times.

(And all of this makes as much sense as little green men from Mars building the damn things!)


Robert Rothman

The pyramids were built by the fish-people living in Atlantis. They were filled with water and served as aquariums that were used as hotels when the Atlantian fish-people went to Egypt on vacation.

What's worse, I can actually come up with "evidence" for the above that is consistent and makes sense.